Home > New York Times Barely Touches Reagan's 100th; Unflattering When It Does

New York Times Barely Touches Reagan's 100th; Unflattering When It Does

By

Clay Waters

February 8, 2011 - 8:30am

New York Times coverage on the weekend of President Ronald Reagan's
centennial (he would have turned 100 on Sunday) was both modest and
hostile, considering the 40th president was one of the most successful
presidents of the 20th century, one who re-invigorated the American
economy and hastened the defeat of the Soviet Union. The few gestures
the Times did make confessed to Reagan's personal sunniness, while
portraying his policies as harmful to the poor and middle class.

The paper did run a preview of the year of Reagan on Thursday - Jennifer Medina's slightly irreverent story began[1]:

Ronald
Reagan would have turned 100 this Sunday, and nearly seven years after
his death, one might think he were still alive and leading the
Republican Party.

Otherwise, the Times marked Reagan's 100th with a column by his liberal biographer Edmund Morris[2],
author of "Dutch," about accompanying Reagan on a visit to his
hometown. It began: "Back in 1992, when Ronald Reagan first began to be
strange...." Morris celebrated the former president's inherent sense of
good manners while emphasizing his well-documented mental deterioration.
This excerpt encapsulates Morris's piece:

...he was
once again an old man in retreat - withdrawn, halting and perplexed.
Yet I noted that he remained standing until every woman in our party had
sat down. Of all Ronald Reagan's innate qualities, his gentlemanliness
was the last to atrophy.

Solomon: Your new documentary,
"Reagan," which makes its premiere on HBO on Feb. 7 in honor of the
president's 100th birthday, includes some wonderful footage of Reagan as
a small-town lifeguard, a handsome figure in his swimming trunks who
happened to be severely nearsighted. Did you intend that as some kind of
metaphor?

Jarceki: That's exactly right. He had certain blind
spots in his priorities but an absolutely genuine desire to be a person
who could save people's lives. No question.

Solomon: He is right
up there with Walt Disney or Norman Rockwell as the creator of a mythic
America characterized by the goodness of its citizens.

Jarecki:
Yes. He presented himself as the friend to Main Street America, and yet
that aw-shucks persona ended up packaging policies and programs that
were at times deeply injurious to the very people he swore to serve.
After all, Reaganomics set in motion one of the largest wealth
redistributions in American history, away from the poor and toward the
rich.

Solomon: Are you a Republican?

Jarecki: You can call
me an Eisenhower Republican. There is a gigantic gulf between an
Eisenhower Republican and the kind of fringe brand of Republicanism that
is being so vocally promoted today.

Later Solomon ludicrously classified two of Jarecki's documentaries as "evenhanded."

Solomon:
As a filmmaker whose documentaries include "Why We Fight" and "The
Trials of Henry Kissinger," you are known for being evenhanded, which
makes you something of an anomaly. Who ever imagined that editorial
neutrality would one day be seen as a challenge to the status quo?

Jarecki:
It's funny, I think that all the time. We've reached the point of such
hysteria and the stupidification of the American discourse that to
simply approach a subject in a measured fashion is to totally jam the
circuits that currently exist for that kind of communication. There are
just so few channels for moderation. There are only channels for the
radio-static noise of hyperbole on all sides.

Knowing
that painting devil's horns on Reagan won't work, Jarecki tries to
seduce Reagan fans with a relatively friendly opening 45 minutes, making
use of fond memories from aides, showing clips of Reagan's many
hilarious quips....Then "Reagan," like Carter, falls under the spell of
its own malaise. It first harrumphs that Reaganomics only worked for the
richest 2% (that the middle and even working classes never believed
this continues to wound the pundits' sense of expertise), then segues to
a tired 12-minute rant on the supposed all-consuming importance of the
Iran-Contra affair, which never really alarmed Americans.

Let's
close with a Reagan-hating New York Times quote from the vast Media Research Center archive, which shows
how reporters, anchors and editors despised the 40th president even
after he left office.

This is from then-editorial page editor Howell Raines in 1993, who
later served as Times executive editor for nine turbulent months between
September 2001 and June 2002:

"I don't shield my
politics in this book, as I do in much of my journalism, as I've been
disciplined to do. The Reagan years oppressed me because of the
callousness and the greed and the hard-hearted attitude toward people
who have very little in this society, so all of that came together at
around age 40 for me." - New York Times editorial page editor and
former Washington bureau chief Howell Raines on the PBS talk show
Charlie Rose, November 17, 1993. [Audio/video (0:25): Windows Media[6] | MP3 audio[7]]

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